大方廣佛華嚴經隨疏演義鈔 6.27

6.27

Regarding the commentary's "Furthermore, the Āgamas say..." onward, this is the second: citing a Hīnayāna sūtra. In the continuous text, the sūtra says: "There is no this old age and death, and there is no one whose old age and death it is." This clearly explains the meaning of the emptiness of both person and phenomena in the twelve links of dependent origination. "This old age and death" points to the phenomenal entity of old age and death. "One whose" refers to the person. Thus, "there is no this old age and death" means that the phenomenon of old age and death is empty; "there is no one whose old age and death it is" means that the self or person is empty. However, the reason why many sūtras and treatises explain that the Hīnayāna explains only the emptiness of the person and does not explain the emptiness of phenomena is due to two reasons: first, speaking in terms of a minority portion, the Hīnayāna mostly explains only personal emptiness; second, speaking in terms of explicit versus inexplicit, although it expounds phenomenal emptiness, it is not fully explicit, and hence it is said not to teach phenomenal emptiness. If speaking in terms of the inexplicit and minority portions, it also explains phenomenal emptiness. The present argument relies on this meaning.